THE LOST LADY OF LONE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 208, 2 September 1893, Page 6

THE LOST LADY OF LONE.

BY MRS E.D.E.N. SOUTEWOBTB.

Author ov "The 'Hidbkn Hand,' • Ui<f.

known.' 'Only a Gtatf.'s Heart,' ' Nearest; and Dbabest, 1 Em, Em

CHAPTER XLI.-(Continuod.)

In the midst of my vain dreaming a thunderbolt fell upon uio! My boy was six wooka old. I had nob yet loft tho house to carry out any of my happy resolutions, when my good Madelona entered my room and brought two largo parcels of English papers, such as were Henb mo monthly by my London correspondent. She told mo thab tho tirab parcel had arrived during my confinement to my bod, and thus she had laid it; away and forgotten all about it until this day, when the arrival of tho second parcel had reminded her of it, and now she had brought them both, and hoped I would excuse her nogligence in not having remembered to bring tho first parcel sooner. I readily and even hastily excused her, for I was anxious to get rid of my good hostess and read my files of papers. As any one eUo would have dono under the like circumstances, I opened tho last parcol firflfc and selected tho latest paper to begin with. It was tho London ' Times' of April 7th. As I opened it, a, short, marked paragraph caught my eyes. Judge of my consternation when I. read tho notice of your marriage with the Lady Augusta McDngakl ! The letters ran together on my vision, tho room whirled around with me, all prow dark, and I lost consciousness. When I rocovered mysenaeslfoundmyself in bed,with Madelona and several of her kind neighbours in attendance upon me. Many days passed before I was able to look again at the file of English newspapers.

You had married again. You had married just one week bofore tho birth of my son ! But under what circumstaucos had you married ! Did you suppose mo to bo dead, ant] that my deal.li had sot you free 1 Or—oh, horror ! had you dragged my namo before a public tribunal, and by lying facts—lor facts do often Ho—had you. branded mo with infidelity, and repudiated mo by divorce'; Such woro tha questions that tormented mo, until I was able to examine the tile of English newspapers, and tind out) ironi them ; for, as before, I would not have .taken any one into my confidence by getting knottier to read the papers for mo, oven if 1 could have found any one in that rural Italian neighbourhood capable- of roatling Entflwh. At length, one morning, I sent for tho paper.l, and began to look them over, and I font) tf—merciful Heaven ! what I feared to find—olio full report of our divorce trial ! found mjaelf held up to public scorn and execration, tho roproach of my own sox— the contempt of youra ! found myself in short, competed and divorced from you, upon the- foulest chargo that can bo brought upon a woman. Guiltless as I was ; wronged as 1" had boon ; wishing only to livo a pure anc\ blameless life, aa I did ! Oh, the intolerable anguish of the days that followed. Bub for my baby boy, I think I should b.iva died or maddened.

lii my worst [.woxysms, good Madolena would come and ffllce up my baby and lay him on my boson. \, and whisper, that uo doubt, though liis Jiandsoma young fathai1 bad gone to Heaven, it was all for tho best; and wo too, if wo \vo."e rood, would one day moat him there, or words to fcbnb effect,

Surely angola arc wvfch children, and their presence m;ikox itself felt in tho comfort children bring to wounded hearts. One clay, in a state bordering on idiocy, I think, I examined and compared dates, in the sickening hopo that my darling boy might have been born bei'ore tho decree of divorce had been pronounced, and thus be the heir of his father's dukedom, notwithstanding all that followed. But, ah! that faint hope aiUo was dosaned to die .' The dates, compariid, stood thus :

The decree of divorce waa pronounced February 13th, 18—.

The marriage between yourself and Lady Augujtua McDugald waa soLemuiaed April Ist! 13-.

My boy waa born April 15th, ]B—. Yea, you divorced the guiltless mother two'months, and married another woman two woekj, before tho birth of. your innocent boy.

You cruelly and unjustly disowned, disinherited, and even delegalised, and degraded your son before he was born, ho that your son was not born in wedlock, could not bear your numo, or inherit your title. And this misfortune came upon him by no fault of his, or of his most unhappy mother's, but by the jealousy, vengeance, and fata! rashness of his father. And now there was no help, either in law or equity, for the dishonoured boy.

This, Duke of Hereward, i.'i tho ruin you have wrought in hia life, in mine, and in

yours. Do you wonder that when I realised ib all I foil into a stato of desjHwr deeper than any I had evor yet known ?—a despair that was characterised by all who ea.\v it aa melancholy madness.

My dear boy, who was ah first such a comfort to me, was now only a beloved sorrow. When I held him to my bosom, I thought of nothing but his bitter, irreparable wrongs. I rlo nob know how Ion" I had continued to live in this despairing and heathenish condition, when one day, in harvest time, Madelena brought good Father Antonio to see me. This Father Antonio was tlio priest of the chapel of Santa Maria, who had performed fclio marriage ceremony between Wnldemar de Vo.'aski and myself.

Tho Fathor also naturally supposed that oil vny grief was for the death of my child's father. He be<;an in a gentle,' admonitory way to robuko mo for inordinate affection Olid sinful ropining;, and to remind mo of the comfort and strength to bo found i:i tho spirit of religion and tho ordinances of tho Church,

My hoarb opened to tlio good old priest as it hud never opened to a living man or even woman before.

Then and there I told him the whole eocret history of my lifo, including evory detail of my.two unhappy marriages, and the fatal divorco preceding tho birth of my Bon. I concealed nothing from him. I told him all, and felt infinitely relieved when I had done so.

The gentlo old man dropped tears of pity over me, and aat in silent sympathy eomo time before ho ventured to give mo any words.

At longht. he arose and said

'Child, I must jro home and pray for ; wiedoin before I can venture to oouusei you.'

' Bless mo, then, holy Father.'

He laid his venerable hands upon my bowed head, raii-ed Mb eyes to Heaven, and invoiced upon me tlio Divine benediction, of which I stood so much in need.

Thon ho silently passed from tho room. That nifjhb I slept in peace. Tho next day the good old man came to me again. He told me that my fireb marriago with Waldemar de Vola^ki was my »nly true marriage, indissoluble by anything bub death, howover invalid in law it might be pronounced by those who were interested in breaking; it. That my second marriage contracted with L»uko of Heroward during the life of

my first husband, was sacrilegious in the eyoa of religion and the Church, however legal it might be considered by the laws of England or of France, and pardonable in mo only on account of my ignorance at the time of tho continued existence of my first husband.

That the desperate stop I had taken of having the Duke of Horeward, upon the discovery of the existence ot Walderaar k Volaski, was tho right and proper course for mo to pursue; but that he regretted I bad nob possessed tho moral courrge to tell the duke tho whole story, for he had that lunch ri^ht to my cootidonce.

Ah for the divorce I so much lamented; il; waa to bo regretted only for the sake of the son whom it had outlawed, for he was tho son of a lawful marriage in the eyes of t'.if> vorld, if not n sacred ono in the oyes of tbe Church.

ii'or the boy thus cruelly wronged there aoemed no opening on earth. He was disowned, disinherited, dologalised, deprived uifon of a name in the world. All earth was closed against him.

But all Heaven was open to him. The Church, Heaven's servant, would open her arms to roceivo tho child whom the world had cast out. Tho Church in baptism would give him a namo and a surname ; vould give him an education and a mission. j must, like Hannah of old, devote my aon, oven from his childhood up, to tho sorvico of tbe altar, and the Church would do tho ro?t.

How comforted I was ! I had somethin sr.il! to liva for. My outcast son would br; !','iTeJ. lie could not inherit his fathor'e t.it.lo and estates ; ho could not bo a duke^ bub he would be a holy minister of the Lord, ho might live to be a priuca of tho Church, an archbishop or a, cardinal.

Foolish ambition of a still worldly mother you may think. Yef, but ho was her ouly son, an:l sho was worso than widowed.

I agreed to all the good priest said. I promised to dodicate my son to the service of tho altar.

Tho noxt Sunday I wont to tho chapel of Santa "Maria and hod my child christened. I gave him in baptism t.ho full name of his father. Uopjio and Madelena stood as his sponsors. They told me St John would be his patron saint. I i allied from my torpor. I built a roomy cottage in a mountain dell near tho chapel of Santa Maria, furnished it comfortably, and move;! into it, and engaged an Italian nurso and housekeeper, for 1 had resolved to pass my life among the simple, kindly pople who were tho only frieuda misfortune had left mo.

Another trial awaited me—a light one, however, in comparison to those I had suf lured and outlived.

This trial came when my son was but littlo over v year old, and I had been about six months in tho ' Hormibage,' as I called

oiv new home.

One morning I received a file of English paper? foi' tho month of May just preceding. In the papers of the first week in May Isavv announced the birth of your son, called tha infant Marquis of Aroudolle, and tho heir. 1 road of tho groat rejoicings in all your various seats throughout tho United Kingdom, and the congratulations of royalty itsoll upon this auspicious event. I clasped my disinherited son to my bosom and wept the very bitterest] toars 1 had ever shed in my life.

Later on I road in the papers for tho last of Way ft graphic account of the grand pageantry of tho christening, which took place tttSfc, Peter's, Euston Square, where an archbishop performed tho sacred rites

and a royal duke stood sponsor, and of tho groat fcastinga and rejoicings in hall and hut on every estate of yours throughout tho kingdom. I thought of my disowned boy's liurablo baptism in the village church by tho country priest, whoro two kindhoartod pea-ants stood sponsors for him, and 1 wept", myself nearly blind that night. Tho next day I went to the littlo church and told the good Father there all about it. Ho understood and sympathised with mo, counselled find comforted mo as usual.

Ho admonished me that to escape from the wounda of tho world I must not only foraako thu world us I hod done, bub forget tho world as 1 had not duiio ; to forget tho world I must cease to search and inquire into its Biiyiug3 and doings ; and ho advised me to write and stop all my newspapers, which only brought me news to disturb my peaco of mind.

I followed tho direction of my wise guide. I wroto immediately and stopped all my newspapers.

After that I devoted myself to the nurture of my child, to tho care of my little household, to tho roliet of my poorer neighbours and to the performance of my religious duties ; and time brought me resignation aod cheerfulness.

From that day to this, Duke of Hereward, 1 have never onco seen your name printed or written, and never onco heard it breathed. You may have passed away from earth, for aught I know to the contrary ; though I hopo and believe that you havo not. .

My boy throve finely. Tho good prient of Santa Maria took charge of his education for the first twelve years of the pupil's lifo, made of him, even at that early age, a good Latin and fireek scholar and a fair mathematician ; and would have prepared him to enter one of tho German Univer-

t-.itiea had not tho summons come that cut short the L'ood Father's work on earth, and carried him to hia oternal home.

It was soon after the loss of this kind friend who had been the strong prop of my weakness, the wiso counsellor of my ignorance, that my own health began to fail. Tho aeada of pulmonary consumption, inbarited horn ray mother, began to develop and nothing could arresb their progress, .For tho last throe yoar3 I have boon an invalid, growing wor*o and worse every year. Perhapa in no other climate, under no other treatment, could I have lived so long a* I h.'ivo been permitted to live hero by the help of the puro air and tho grape euro. My boy, now fifteen yoara of age, is everything Mmt 1 could wish him to be, except in cue respect. He will not consent fca outer the Church. He wants to bo a soldier, poor lad. Well, we cannot coerce him into a life of sanctity and self-denial. Such a life must always bo a voluntary sacrifice, Neither do I wish to cross him now that I am on my death-bed and doomed i-o soon to leave him.

In these last days on earth, lying on my dying bed, travailing for his good, it has eomo to me liko an inspiration that 1 must send him to his father. I must not leave him friendless in tho world. And now that the priest Antonio has long passed away and I am f o soon to follow ho will have no friends exespt these poor, helpless (Italian peasants among whom ho has been reared. Therefore I must send him, in tj(o hope that you will recognise him by his exact likeness to yourself, and prove his identity un you? son by all the testimony yon can be sure to gather in Paris and at San Vito. I have written this long lottor in the intervals between pain and fever during the lust few weeks.

Yesterday my faithful physician warned n\o that my days on earth had dwindlod down to hou.-s; that I might paps away at any moment now, and had therefore bast attend to any necessary businesa that I miahb wish to settle.

This warning admonishes mo to finish and cioso my letter. 1 end as 1 began, by Bwearing to you, by all the hopes of salvation in a dying woman, that Archibald Scott is your own son. You can prove this to your own satisfaction by coming to San Vito and examining the church register as to the dntoa ot his birth, baptism and bo forth ; by which you will find that he wa3 born just five months after I left your roof, and just Bis months after our return from O'.ir long yachting cruise, and the renewal of my acquaintance with Count de Volaski, ab the British Minister's dinner. You see, by those circumstances, there cannot bo

even the shadow of a doubb as to his true parentage. I repeat, thab I have nob told the boy the secret of his birth ; to have dono so might have been to have embittered his mind against you, and I would nob on my deathbed do anything to sow enmity between father and son.

I leave to yourself to tell him, if you should ever think proper to do so, and with what explanations you may please to add. I have constituted you his sole guardian, and trustee of the moderate property I bequoath him. He wishes to enter the army, and he will have money sufficient to purchase a commission and support himself respectably in somo good regiment), I hope thab when the proper time cornea you will forward his ambition in this direction.

And so I leave him in your hands, for my feeble strength fails, and I nan only add my name. {To be Continued.)